Late night takes hard left turn — with 7K Trump jokes, and gags targeting conservatives up 92%: study
Late-night comedy is more left-leaning than ever, with 92% of jokes targeting the right and liberal guests outnumbering conservatives nearly 100 to 1, according to new data obtained exclusively by The Post.
Media watchdog NewsBusters reviewed 818 episodes from 2025 across shows including Jimmy Kimmel Live!, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Late Night with Seth Meyers, and The Daily Show. They found 197 liberal guests appeared this year compared to just two conservative guests: Fox host Greg Gutfeld, who was on Fallon in August, and economist Oren Cass, a center-right policy analyst who appeared on The Daily Show in April to discuss President Trump’s tariffs.
The data also showed a 10% increase in jokes targeting conservatives compared with 2024.
Kimmel emerged as the most aggressive late-night host, making 3,046 jokes about the right last year—97% of his total comedy content. He also targeted President Trump 1,668 times over 155 episodes, averaging about 11 jokes per show. Some of his jokes were particularly harsh, including one in which he referred to members of Trump’s cabinet as “AI-generated human vomits” while contrasting them with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
Across all major late-night programs, President Trump was overwhelmingly the focus of ridicule, appearing in 7,045 jokes this year—up from 5,980 last year. Even international figures joined in; in a recent appearance on Colbert’s show, Prince Harry made a controversial comment about Trump that drew boos and criticism, even from some left-leaning viewers.
In addition to political commentary, late-night shows heavily promoted certain local races. For example, 95% of jokes about New York’s mayoral election targeted candidates other than Mamdani. Colbert even hosted Senator Elizabeth Warren for an unusual three-segment interview to highlight Mamdani’s message of affordability and workers’ rights.
The trend reflects what Media Research Center president David Bozell described as part of “the elitist media complex that has fueled hatred of conservatives for years.”
Meanwhile, CBS announced in July that it will cancel Colbert’s Late Show next May, citing financial reasons, though NewsBusters noted the program had effectively become a “therapy session” for liberal audiences.
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